David R. Dowell

DAVID R. DOWELL, Ph.D., has two degrees in history and two in library science, as well as 35 years of experience as a librarian and 4 years as a special investigative officer in the U.S. Air Force. He has taught courses in U.S. genealogy research and European genealogy research since his retirement in 2007 and has researched his family history for four decades. He is a member of the National Genealogical Society, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogy Society, and the Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society. He is co-coordinator of two surname and one haplogroup DNA projects and has chaired both the Genealogy and the Ethics Committees of the American Library Association. He taught an online course: Ethics In The Information Age. He plans to integrate his interest in genealogy, ethics and DNA testing in his next book NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection. The book will be published in November, 2014. Check out his blog Dr D. Diggs Up Ancestors at http://blog.ddowell.com and his more complete resume at http://ddowell.com/dave/resume.pdf.

For more than a decade we have been using surrogates to help us explore our family histories. We use surrogates to discover DNA information passed down from our ancestors that was not passed down to us. The first major application of this technique was when women solicited close male relatives -- fathers, brothers, nephews or cousins to take yDNA tests to establish the DNA signatures their paternal surname lines.

Please join Dr D and Bernice Bennett on Thursday night, January 29th, at 9:00 PM Eastern time as we talk about genetic genealogy on blog talk radio over the internet. Bernice is the host of the show "Research at the National Archives and Beyond". Here is what she has to say about her show:Welcome to Research at the National Archives and Beyond! This show will provide individuals interested in genealogy and history an opportunity to listen, learn and take action. You can join me every T

Many of us die hard genetic genealogists who are seriously addicted to family history research may not have noticed, but AncestryDNA seems to have become more expensive for the casual DNA test taker. In a notice last updated on January 12th in the Help section of its site, Ancestry differentiated what is available to those who order an autosomal DNA (atDNA) test and those who order an atDNA test AND a database subscription.

On Facebook and in other genetic genealogy forums the question is often asked if it would be useful to extend a yDNA test. The conventional wisdom seems to be that mismatches occur in a symmetrical manner. According to that scenario, two men who mismatch by zero or 1 on a 12 marker test are likely to have 1 or 2 mismatches over 25 markers. If the test were to be extended to 37 markers, 2 or 3 mismatches might be expected. If the test were extended to 67 markers, 3 or 4 mismat

A few days ago I was exploring my Family Finder matches at FTDNA. When I do this I first select to "Show Full View" which is just above the icon for my first match:

This allows me to see "Longest Block" and other items of interest.
I then located the person with whom I shared the longest block but had yet to find a relationship on paper. That person shares a block of 41 cMs with me on Chromosome 10 and is predicted by FTDNA to be my 2nd to 4th cousin. I the

A few thousand if not several thousand men have or soon will have BIG Y test results. Of these the R1b-L21 haplogroup project has 800 all by itself. Funding the test is only the first major hurdle. Next comes the formidable task of incorporating the information into your family history.

Making sense of all the SNPs that have been discovered in the last year is overwhelming to many of us. That SNP Tsunami wave train is not a single event but a series that will be washing n

Many of us wonder what path our ancestors traveled through prehistory to the time that pieces of their journey were recorded in various forms of the written word. Those of us who have European female ancestry can use a full mitochondrial test to tell us from which of the Seven Daughters of Eve we descended through our direct maternal lines. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that we may have descended from several of the seven daughters described by Bryan Sykes or even from sister

Your genome had already been on a long journey before your parents got together to conceive the unique you. If the current estimates of our best scientists are to be believed, the human portion of that journey could have taken more than 300,000 years. For our genomes to have survived the extreme climate changes, wars, famines and disease is a miracle equal to those of the ones surrounding the creation of our species and our universe.

The more I learn about the publishing industry, the more confused I get.

As some of you know the official release date for my new book, NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection, was November 30th.

If you pre-ordered it from the publisher ABC-Clio, you probably already have the physical version in hand. Amazon started allowing Kindle downloads last Sunday, but as of this morning does not yet have the paper copy in stock. Barnes and Noble has been

FTDNA sure came up with a way to entertain for the next 5 weeks those of us who are DNA junkies. The introduction of the Mystery Reward to the sale is a game changer. If gives us a chance to open our presents (Mystery Reward) discount codes before Christmas -- actually every week. Now the tactical planning can begin. The currently available Mystery Rewards expire Sunday night.

Apparently they come in 11 categories as Angela Robertson reported on the ISOGG Face

This morning the 2014 Holiday Sale is being unveiled on the FTDNA site. Everyone likes a sale; and this is a very comprehensive one -- with a twist thrown in to add to the excitement. Below is what the company has to say:​ We’re launching the long-awaited Holiday Sale and we wanted you to be the first to know! It will extend through Dec. 31, 2014 (11:59 PM Central). The reduced prices will either be visible at 10:00 AM Central or very shortly afterwards. For this holiday

Most of us, who have been interested in genetic genealogy for more than 4 years, got our start by trying to understand the STRs (Short Tandem Repeats) of yDNA. For those of you who are new to this field, STRs are what is counted at various specified locations along Chromosome Y to generate the numbers on 12 markers, 25 markers, ... and 111 markers test results.
In the last few years our attention has been drawn to the cMs (centiMorgans) of matching segments of the large numbers of a

According to the schedule established by the publisher last summer, NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection should have gone to the publisher yesterday. Did it? Only time will tell. As some of you may have heard me say, I was born in Missouri, the "Show Me" state. Therefore, I only believe things after I have seen them. Since I am a slow learner, I often don't believe them until two weeks after I have seen them.

Within the last week several events have occurred to flesh out our small project. This is exciting but it also will take a while to absorb this influx of new data and make sense out of it all. However, relationships are emerging among project members -- some of whom had previously appeared to be living alone on almost deserted ySNP islands.

Genetic genealogy got its start in 2000 and yDNA dominated the first decade. mtDNA entered the scene late in that decade but has two difficulties to overcome. The first is that it is a fairly blunt instrument with only 16,569 locations to differentiate among all of us. It is good for deep ancestry but has yet to demonstrate it has potential to differentiate among related individuals. Second, to date there there have not been hundreds of thousands test their complete mitochondria -- th

Back in June on the eve of Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank, I had dinner with my acquisitions editor at the publisher who has published all my books to date. She had just read and forwarded to the production editor the manuscript for NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection. As we parted that evening she asked, "What are your going to write next?"

At the time I was not ready to answer that question. My commitment involvement to complete NextGen had not yet run its course.

I'm happy to pass along this notice which just appeared in my email box because we all benefit when more people are tested and the databases of potential matches grow bigger:

Dear Beloved Bloggers,

We hope you've had a great summer! As the season draws to a close, join us for one last celebration with our End of Summer Y-DNA Sale! Customers can order a Y-DNA test and join the world's largest Y-DNA database today. All Y-DNA tests and upgr

Yesterday I wrote about a BIG Y discovery that got my Maryland Dowells past SNPs R-L21 and R-DF13. The Virginia Group 1 Dowells in our surname project had long been known to have come forward in time from those two SNPs and were known to have reached R-M222. Thanks to the informative charts that citizen scientist Mike Walsh tirelessly updates at the site of the R L21 and Subclades Project, we have the opportunity to almost keep up with the current SNP tsunami:
The chart above is offer

With great haste we make slow progress. I just returned the copy edits for my new book to the editor. Another step closer to the publication date but still a few steps to go.
For those of you who have not experienced the process, I'll review it for you. I signed the contract last September. The manuscript was due at the publisher at the end of December. That deadline was missed and my co-author had to withdraw because of success in other areas of her life as a genetic genealog

For a long time I have been stymied in my efforts to trace my SNP trail through the most recent three or four millennia down to genealogical time. Now we are beginning to make some headway due largely to the herculean efforts of the citizen scientists of the R-L21 and subclades project. The BIG Y, Full Y, Chromo2 and other discovery tests are providing multiples of the numbers of SNPs that had been identified prior to the beginning of 2014.

If you are interested in more information on the story of Cynthia Nixon which aired on this season's first episode of the US version of Who Do You Think You Are? on TLC on Wednesday evening, I have a couple of suggestions for going deeper. If you missed the show when it was first aired, you can watch a recap online at the TLC site. Two respected bloggers offer you a chance to explore the most explosive event in Cynthia's family history in more detail.

Reserve your spot now for the Tennessee Ancestry Library Event (TALE) on Saturday, September 20th."Discover and celebrate your family history! This full day of genealogy classes, sponsored by Ancestry.com and the Tennessee State Library & Archives, will be held at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel (623 Union Street, Nashville, TN 37219) on Saturday, September 20. Registration for the all-day event is only $30.00. Space is limited, register today! Speakers will include

Early yesterday evening I began to receive notices from family and friends that something was amiss with my Facebook (FB) account. It seemed I had a new account which had about a half dozen pictures from my original account -- including my profile picture. Many if not all of my existing Facebook friends had been invited to accept "friend" requests to the new fake site. I had even been given a sex change.

On June 30th I along with three other Adams 1st cousins met in person, for the first time, our newly found 39th first cousin, Jim Jones. Previous posts have chronicled the discovery of Jim through a DNA match: Another Adams Cousin; and X Factor: Another Adams Cousin, part 2.

Over the Spring, we had examined each of my mother's 9 sisters which DNA tests indicated could have been Jim's biological mother. Gradually we had ruled out five. Four of them were already married at